Reason & Bradbury -- chapters 2-6

Chapters 2-5 were an ongoing explanation of the historical roots of action research. It was interesting to understand that action research was brewed in the turmoil of the late 60's and 70's. Some of the main goals at that time was that: 1) ideas should be communicated in common language and not academic language so that "ordinary people could be a part of the scientific process" (p. 28).

2) action research should move away from the idea of science = truth and therefore being important in and of itself without having a moral conscience. Scientific knowledge needs to have "a moral conscience and reason . . . [needs] to be enriched with sentiment and feeling" (p. 29).

3) the distinction between "researcher and the researched" should be discarded in favor of both groups being empowered to fully being part of the process of discovery (p. 30).

Chapter 4 described how race became part of the motivation and discussion on how to liberate underempowered groups in America and the world. Chapter 5 described how feminism was added to the discussion and the empowering of women. Both of these ideas were historical movements from the 70's.

Chapter 6 outlined and reinforced these historical roots with the present practice of empowerment of regular people by allowing them to being a part of the process and in control of the knowledge generated through the research. There is a balance between three primary ideas: knowledge, action and consciousness (p. 76).